Dozens of residents from different East Bay cities wait in line outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most them, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Anna Aubuchon, of Moraga, sits on her own camping chair as her husband David Aubuchon brings her a meal as she has been waiting for about an hour in line, she said, outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of East Bay residents, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

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Hailey Sykes, with her 5-month-old baby boy Roman Sykes, of Concord, wait in line outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of East Bay residents, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office on that day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Dozens of residents from different East Bay cities wait in line outside the DMV office while others wait for their number to be called in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of them, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office on that day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

New DMV surveys rest on a counter as Anna Aubuchon, of Moraga, applies for a renewal of drivers license and change of address after waiting for more about two hours in line outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of East Bay residents, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

While dozens of residents wait in line for about two hours outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., empty chairs are available inside on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of the East Bay residents, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office on that day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Andre Grenville, 16, of Concord, reacts after passing his written test for a driver license permit at the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Grenville, like most of the East Bay residents, who didn't have appointment, spent an average of four hours and half to exit the office. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Andre Grenville, 16, of Concord, has his picture taken before taking his written test for a driver license permit at the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of East Bay residents, who didn't have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

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HAYWARD — Mirella Ortiz was on the verge of tears.

It had been five and a half hours since she arrived at the Hayward DMV, and she’d just gotten a number and a chance to sit down. She was hungry and tired after not having slept much the night before. Someone had stolen Ortiz’ wallet, and she needed an ID to visit her 15-year-old brother, who had just landed in jail.

“It’ll be worth it,” she said, determination keeping at bay the tears welling in her eyes.

She wasn’t the only one who needed determination.

It took Mikayla Kalem eight hours Tuesday to get a California ID card at the Hayward DMV. Ken Shirriff waited at the Redwood City DMV field office on June 6 for six hoursto renew an expired license. Susan Odle, of San Jose, made an appointment in mid-April to change her name on her driver’s license and waited for an hour and a half at the Los Gatos DMV, only to discover she didn’t have the correct paperwork. She made another appointment for May 31 and again waited two hours before she could get to the front of the appointment line, only to be told she had to come back — for the third time.

Across the Bay Area, average wait times between May 29 and June 20 have more than doubled since the same time period last year for people both with and without appointments, according to the DMV.

“What was especially frustrating is that I had spoken to someone there at the DMV,” Odle said. “Then I waited two hours and made it all the way to the front counter, and the woman at the desk looked at my paperwork and again said, ‘You don’t have what you need.’ ”

It’s a scene that’s been playing out across the state, said Assembly member Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, who’s been fielding an increased number of complaints from constituents. Now he and two other legislators are calling for an audit to address the recent increase in wait times.

Dozens of residents from different East Bay cities wait in line outside the DMV office while others wait for their number to be called in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of them, who didn’t have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office on that day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

The longest waits in the Bay Area, according to the DMV, are at the San Jose Driver’s License Processing Center, where customers without appointments spend an average of two hours and 50 minutes from the time they check in to the time they get to the counter. That’s no surprise, said DMV spokesman Martin Greenstein, because ever since the DMV began issuing the federally-mandated Real IDs, staff is spending more time explaining the requirements, and it’s taking longer to review the documents customers are required to show.

Real IDs, an effort to standardize driver’s licenses across states and establish uniform security standards, will be required beginning October 2020 for California residents to board any commercial flight, unless they carry a passport. The same will apply to certain federal facilities where identification is required. Driver’s licenses that are not Real ID-compliant still will be valid in the state.

“Since most offices have a mix of driver license/identification card and quicker vehicle registration transactions, it’s not surprising that an office that only handles driver license applications would currently have a higher average wait time,” Greenstein said via email.

For those with appointments, the longest average wait time was at the Santa Rosa DMV field office, at more than 27 minutes, followed by the Redwood City DMV, which was about 20 seconds faster. Aside from the San Jose center, non-appointment wait times ranged from two hours and 19 minutes at the Oakland Coliseum field office to just 14 minutes in Napa.

Hailey Sykes, with her 5-month-old baby boy Roman Sykes, of Concord, wait in line outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of East Bay residents, who didn’t have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office on that day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

The agency registers wait times from the moment a customer is given a number at the front desk to the moment he or she is called to the counter to complete the transaction. Standing outside waiting to get in doesn’t count.

That was especially frustrating for customers at the Walnut Creek DMV on June 30, who looked on the DMV’s website to see it was registering wait times of only 26 minutes. Little did they know it would take them two to three hours just to get their number, and they’d have to endure those hours while standing in 90-degree heat with little shade and no chairs.

Inside the air-conditioned office, more than half of the blue plastic bucket chairs sat empty while customers were admitted in small groups, though the space could have accommodated many more. It was a change from the office’s practices a few weeks earlier, when customers entered as soon as there was room to stand. A spokesman from the DMV said the office was following protocol.

“They’re quoting their wait times based on not allowing people in the door, and it looks better,” said Dave Gallacher, of Walnut Creek. “But it’s not really honest.”

While dozens of residents wait in line for about two hours outside the DMV office in Walnut Creek, Calif., empty chairs are available inside on Friday, June 29, 2018. Most of the East Bay residents, who didn’t have appointment, spent about four hours and half to exit the office on that day. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

In response to the longer wait times, the DMV last month began opening at select field offices on the first and third Saturdays of the month from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Greenstein said it’s too early to tell if those hours are helping alleviate the weekday crowd.

By late May, the agencyhired 330 employees to help process the new Real IDs, with plans to hire 166 more, and is working temporary staff full-time, Greenstein said. On June 30, when this news organization informed the DMV’s central office it would be sending a reporter and a photographer to speak to customers at its Concord field office, it put in place measures that haven’t been observed elsewhere but that appeared to be working.

A highly-regarded field office manager, who usually works in Napa, was overseeing operations. Every counter was staffed, and there were at least three employees available to answer questions and direct people to the correct line or window. Before the doors opened — 15 minutes early — an employee had separated the line into appointments and non-appointments, as well as people who needed a driver’s license or identification card and those who were there for anything else.

The result? The line had evaporated just after 9 a.m., and customers were in and out within an hour.

How to survive the DMV: A field guide

Following these suggestions might help you avoid or lessen a wait:

Make an appointment on the DMV’s website www.dmv.ca.gov or call (800) 777-0133. You can call 90 days in advance, but the appointment must be within 60 days before your license expires.

Go to the appointment-only line.

If you make an appointment, make sure to get a confirmation or printout.

Arrive early. Parking spaces can be difficult to find, and sometimes it takes a while to get to the front of the appointment line.

If you can’t make an appointment, try showing up closer to 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. The number of new arrivals tends to die down in the afternoon, and the DMV will process any customer who gets in the door by 5 p.m.

If you need to arrive early and you don’t have an appointment, bring a water bottle, a snack — which you’ll have to eat outside — and some patience.

Remember that written tests end at 4:30 p.m.

To apply for a REAL ID, you must visit a DMV field office. Go to on REALID.dmv.ca.gov for document options such as a social security card, a copy of your W-2, passport, copy of a utility bill or mail with your name and address. Remember that even though the website says “a copy of,” the DMV really means you need to bring the original document.

If your name has changed due to marriage, you’ll need your marriage certificate. If you’re switching back to your maiden name, you’ll need a legal document signed by a judge.

Skip an office visit. Vehicle-registration renewals can be completed by mail, online, at a self-service terminal, some grocery stores or at AAA for members.

Shop around. You can go to any DMV office.

Try a Saturday. There are 43 field offices throughout the state that will be open on the first and third Saturdays of each month from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Behind-the-wheel exams will not be available on Saturdays.

Erin Baldassari covers transportation, the Bay Area's housing shortage and breaking news. She served on the East Bay Times' 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning team for its coverage of the Ghost Ship fire. But most of all, she cares deeply about local news and hopes you do, too. If you'd like to support local journalism, please subscribe today.

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